


The Calculation Of Unnatural Numbers

by rowanthestrange_yugihell



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (minor) - Freeform, (references), Breathplay, F/F, Fingering, I Now Know More Than I Intended To Know, In Regards To Ada Lovelace, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, The Nature Of Inevitability, Trans Doctor, smut with substance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:53:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22227340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell
Summary: The Doctor isn’t running right. Her logic is flawed. There’s an error in her code.And who better to go to for a reboot, than Ada Lovelace?
Relationships: Thada - Relationship, Thirteenth Doctor/Ada Lovelace
Comments: 22
Kudos: 95





	The Calculation Of Unnatural Numbers

* * *

  


The Doctor isn’t in right now.

She’s keeping to herself, spending less and less time around these parts recently. Five minutes, two minutes, thirty seconds - however long it takes for someone to ask an awkward question and for the Doctor to find a vague reply. Then she goes away again.

Leaving the rest of herself behind.

Never be cruel, never be cowardly (and if you ever are, always make amends), never give up, never give in.

Nope, forget that, she plans to ignore all four of those things and not apologise in the slightest.

(Cruel. Does she intend to be cruel? No. But when she sees that far-off look in Yaz’s eyes as she turns away, she knows that she’s being so anyway, so it amounts to the same thing.)

The TARDIS is even darker in its fake-night mode. The creature otherwise known as the Doctor flicks switches on the console, trying to wear them out so she has an excuse to replace them. Anything to distract her from her thoughts.

It’s always Yaz. With her disappointed eyes. She haunts her and she’s not even dead.

 _'Yet.’_ A voice in her brain hisses treacherously.

There’s something wrong with her. She needs fixing.

 _'What you need, is a Doctor.’_ His voice purrs.

There’s a flaw in her moral code right now. Far more than just one. And she could sit and debug and analyse herself. But she’s never done that before. Wouldn’t know where to begin.

The Time Lords are dead again. Everything she builds is a sandcastle in front of the tide. There’s no order in the universe, only endlessly looping chaos. But she can’t break anything, if everything’s inevitable.

Why debug herself, if she could get someone much wiser, sweeter, and braver to do it for her?

  


* * *

  


The plush house is full of ticking clocks and thick rugs, ideal for masking one’s footsteps. Which is appreciated, as the smooth red-brick walls without a single finger-hold to help her climb up, made breaking in from the ground floor the only option.

The night is lit by a full moon that shines her path through the windows. It makes her feel even more the prowling monster, as she slips past doorways with the flicker of candlelight beyond, the faint smell of wax mixing in the air with clay-heath-alluvium... Surrey.

The Doctor doesn’t usually use her full range of senses, but there’s no-one here to judge her now, and after making contact with the Master it’s easier than ever before to unfold that uppermost part of herself, reach out like winding her tendrils into the dark, to find the remnants of artron energy that is Ada Lovelace.

It finds her behind a dark wooden door, a faint glow in the gaps where it doesn’t hang quite flush. The Doctor analyses it and - twisting the door handle slowly - lifts and holds it at precisely the right angle that it swings open, and then closed, without a creak.

A guttering candle is burning down to its holder on a nightstand by a washbowl, just barely illuminating the room. But there’s no need to hurry to the shadows. The occupier of the room is fast asleep, the papers she fell asleep reading scattered on the bed.

That will make things easier.

Feeling distinctly closer to a vampire - or far worse, the evil that crept upon Ada’s father as a boy - she slowly steps closer, shifting her weight carefully across every floorboard to keep the silence. And even though she doesn't know how to be the Doctor right now, she doesn’t like how it feels.

Today she’s not the judge. But she’s not the villain either.

Today she is simply the jailer holding the keys.

She reaches out with two fingers to brush against Ada’s temple. The woman’s eyes open with a start, and the Doctor presses a hand to her mouth, hoping a wide smile will offset the terror. Which it probably won’t. This was actually a very stupid plan.

But Ada doesn’t try and make a sound. She breathes deeply through her nose, the air rushing against the Doctor’s fingers, and shuts her eyes tightly before blinking hard a few times.

“Yeah, feels weird dunnit? Probably. Sorry, by the way, but it was for the best.” The Doctor relaxes as Ada’s breathing becomes more even, and for all she doesn’t want to be the Doctor, she just can’t help it, the babbling, the grinning, the need to make herself as non-threatening as possible despite being _intrinsically_ threatening right now.

“Might be all buzzing about at the surface - your memories, but it’ll settle down in a minute.”

“D-ct-r?” Ada says muffled against her palm, eyes widening in wonder.

“Yeah, I guess that’s what we’re going with.” The Doctor says, letting her fingers trace down Ada’s jaw as her hand falls, because she’s not entirely ready to go back to the role yet.

“You... You erased my thoughts like chalk on a slate.” Ada says, and seems more in awe than offended.

“I didn’t erase them - hard to erase data at the best of times - I just blocked them, made it so it redirected your thoughts away every time you tried to think about it.”

“You can do that?” Ada wonders, and it’s beautiful, because Ada’s not marvelling that _she_ can do it, but rather that the idea is possible at all. 

Of course she is. Earth’s first computer philosopher.

“No more Kasaavin conundrums?” The Doctor asks, because it would be foolish not to.

“No, no,” Ada says, sitting up in her bed, “No more visitors from another plane - besides you. I suppose it is a great relief to not be mad. My mother would be pleased.”

“You _suppose_?”

“It’s also something of a disappointment.” Ada says, finding her notes spread across the bedsheets and looking over them. “Sometimes it’s easier to expect the worst and for it to happen, rather than waiting, forgetting, and having it suddenly creep up on you, you understand?”

Intimately.

Ada puts the papers on her nightstand, and the Doctor immediately picks them back up. Formulas and lines and tables and Ada’s extra little notations.

“Now _that_ I don’t expect you to understand.” Ada says, half laughing and shifting to the middle of her capacious bed.

“Do though.” The Doctor says, puffing up like a poppinjay before she’s even actually started to read it.

The Doctor sits on the bed, leafing through the dense mathematics, leaning back against the pillow Ada just moved from. 

“You’re describing an algorithm...”

“For a machine that doesn’t exist.” Ada says flatly.

“To compute a Cauchay-” the Doctor flinches, “Cauch _y_ sequence.” She corrects. 

The Doctor puts the papers back on the side, well away from the candle, and then lies back in the bed again. The heat left behind by Ada’s body in the sheets seeps into the Doctor’s body and migrates its way through her. Brilliant mathematicians have that effect on her.

Ada turns to face her, eyes glittering with the fervour of like-meeting-like, and sits up straighter, the blankets falling away. The Doctor can see the beat of her heart through the tiny twitches of a nightgown not dissimilar to what she herself used to wear (until she came back to the ease of boxer shorts, and occasionally coziness of teddy bear pyjamas, that is).

“You understand it? Is that what they call it? In your time? He’ll be thrilled to hear it.” Ada moves a little closer. “What year are you from?”

The Doctor looks away, because of course this is still happening, even when she wanted...whatever it was she wanted.

But it helps her realise her boots are all over the bed, and she wasn’t raised in a barn, except when she was.

“Oh, a little bit of everywhen.” She deflects skilfully, chucking her boots and coat on the floor.

“Why _are_ you back here?” Ada asks, watching her cross her bare ankles as she settles back.

“Just wanted to check up on you.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Well you’re a busy woman.”

“As, I gather, are you.” Ada says, with eyebrows raised. The Doctor frowns. “Or is this one of the unfortunate parts of travelling in time?”

“Sorry?”

“That it’s been so long since our previous encounter?”

“Ah. Not 1834?” Damn the TARDIS.

“1837. I hope I will be a more interesting companion now, than my eighteen year old self.” Bless the TARDIS.

“Oh! Yes, definitely. Not that you were- Just that- Obviously no-one more interesting than Ada Lovela-”

“King.” 

“Ada King.” Right, she knew it wasn’t Lovelace, why doesn’t she listen when people talk to her? “Love a King. I mean, not statistically but- Who is it now, William the Fourth? Never met him, so he must’ve kept his head down, which I always like in an unelected official-”

“Doctor.”

“Yeah?” The Doctor replies, thankful for the interruption.

“Why did you come here?”

Because she thought it might help. Because she wanted to get away from herself. Because she needed to not think about everything for a while. Because looking at her friends made her soul ache. Because she still needed to be beside someone.

“Because I liked you.” She says, honestly.

“Good.” Ada whispers. “I like you too.”

'The Doctor’ would stop here. But she wants to be the rest of herself right now. So when Ada tilts her head, she mirrors it and leans into her, meeting Ada’s mouth with hers.

She’s as soft under her lips as she hadn’t-permitted-herself-to-imagine she’d be.

Ada’s breath quivers, her lips part slightly as they move against the Doctor’s, and her hands find the Doctor’s own, holding them between them.

The Doctor laces and unlaces her fingers with Ada’s, never losing contact, stroking her palms, her wrists, the delicate pads of her fingertips.

Sensation, and sensation, and sensation, so there’s no room for anything else. How ridiculous of her, to cross time and space to be with a genius, in order to _stop_ herself thinking.

Ada’s mouth opens under hers, as the Doctor finds every un-ladylike burn, and callous, and scar on her fingers, examining her, and she wonders if Ada is doing the same. Wonders what she’s finding.

She doesn’t want to think about who or what she is right now. She just wants to exist.

The young woman gasps at the feel of the Doctor’s tongue against her lips, and Ada pulls their joined hands into her lap as the Doctor presses it inside her.

The slide of her tongue, the damp of their clasped hands, the wetness just an inch shy of her fingers if she chose to find it. It’s like drowning.

All she’s ever wanted is something that can take her breath away.

She presses Ada to lie back, still exploring her mouth with her tongue, and Ada rolls her hips to nudge herself against the Doctor's knuckles until the Doctor’s forced to extricate one hand so she doesn't overbalance.

The Doctor slides her lips down her jaw, the embroidery between her breasts, the soft swell of her stomach, until she reaches where Ada has a death grip on her left hand.

She presses a kiss to the place where Ada holds the Doctor’s knuckles against herself, and rides the motions of her hips, pushing firmer and firmer against her hand, replacing it with her mouth, until Ada releases her fingers in favour of a firm grip on the back of her head.

Ada King. She could have a King. What is a master to that? No, no, no thinking. More sensation, more action.

She focuses instead on the thin material separating her lips from the second most sensitive part of Ada’s body. After her brain of course. Kissing the place where the valley of her begins, Ada presses her closer until all she can see, all she can smell, all she can feel is her.

The Doctor runs a hand along Ada’s leg, up her thigh, feeling the muscles flex at every movement of her mouth.

She savours the slide of material over the back of her hand. She is never less the Doctor than when she’s putting her hand up someone’s dress.

Ada starts to make tiny noises as the Doctor pushes it slowly up to beneath her chin. She looks up to see Ada’s face, flushed and desperate, bottom lip swollen from biting on it.

The pressure on the back of her skull releases, and the Doctor pulls back, unveiling Ada to herself. Naked in the near dark, her legs spread enough for the Doctor to lie comfortably between them, she sees her glistening with wet in the last light of the candle as Ada twitches with desire.

No. Wait.

She’s _giggling_.

The Doctor props herself up on one elbow, giving her a look of mock-offence.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that,” she turns her face to her pillow to catch her laugh. “Oh, my mother used to have these women follow me, for signs of _moral deviation_ , and here I am with you.”

Ada King. You rebel.

“Am _I_ a moral deviant?” The Doctor teases, while her hearts pound ‘I need to know, I need to know, I need to know’.

“I have communed with ungodly beings from another world, and people across time, and am still doing it. I think we’re a little beyond that now.”

Ada pets the Doctor’s hair, pulling it slightly between her fingers. Her other hand traces the whorls of her ear, the points of the metal stars, tugs ever so lightly on her chain.

Obligingly, the Doctor dips her head and licks along her. Less obligingly, she sucks hard on her clit until she squeaks, because she wanted a better answer.

The Doctor runs a finger down her. Trails it through wetness, spreading it, spreading her, as she now takes far more delicate care of the bud between her lips.

The clitoris, excellent organ. Evolution’s answer to boredom.

She tries to map it out with her tongue - its tiny topography, the texture, the folds around it. Swollen with arousal as it is, she thinks if she kept Ada still, and concentrated very hard, she could maybe take her pulse.

The Doctor runs her fingers either side of her folds, where inside her the rest of that marvel extends hidden beneath the surface, and as Ada sighs, she slides them together to glide along the smoothness of her centre.

She pauses and looks up, because even in her current recklessness she doesn’t want to damage a young woman’s life, in these stupid physiology-obsessed times.

“Are you- Have you-”

Ada cocks her head at her as if she’s stupid, and rocks against her fingers. The Doctor’s breath hitches at the sensation as they enter her, and the look in Ada’s eyes.

“You don’t actually know the first thing about me, do you?”

No. That is becoming quite apparent.

Ada bucks her hips against the Doctor’s hand, until she’s knuckle-deep in the warm squeeze of her, and she drops her head to meet her, kissing her clit hungrily, overwhelming herself with the sound and slide and salt of her.

Inside her the Doctor curls her fingers and rides the waves of her motion as it becomes more and more desperate. Ada grips the back of her neck so tightly, and it would be so easy to drown in the ocean of her. The Doctor draws her lips down, inserting her tongue alongside her fingers, and Ada grinds against her nose, thighs pressed tight against her ears, she couldn’t pull away if she wanted to, and the wetness fills her mouth, gushing, spurting, she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe-

Ada collapses around her like a house of cards, and the Doctor takes a huge gasp of air, pillowing her head on Ada’s thigh. She breathes deeply as the air on her wet face - from Ada, from her own sweat - chills her skin. There’s no point in her respiratory bypass if she doesn’t use it. But there would also be no cheating death if she did.

“Oh, my _Lord_...” Ada breathes above her, and the Doctor flinches before she realises Ada’s taking someone else’s name in vain.

Five seconds out and the Doctor’s already back to _herself_.

The Doctor shimmies off the end of the bed, acutely aware of the uncomfortable state of her underwear and the heat within, and immediately heads to the washbowl. She splashes her face, giving it and her hands a rub with the cloth, and takes a mouthful of water to swill her mouth out, before she realises there’s nowhere to spit, and the windows won’t open. She settles for a mercifully clean chamberpot instead.

There’s a tired huff of laughter behind her, and the Doctor sits back on the bed.

“Look, I dunno about you,” the Doctor says, gently mopping Ada up with the damp cloth, “But I don't get what's supposed to be so sexy about getting a mouthful of your own vaginal fluids back when you’re snogging someone after having an orgasm.” She puts the cloth back beside the bowl, and then wipes her wet fingers on her trouser leg. “Before an orgasm, yeah, sure, everything seems sexy _before_ you orgasm, but _after_ -”

Ada grabs her by the shirt, stretching it and pulling her down for kiss. It’s heavy, with Ada’s tongue on her lips, slipping into her mouth, and maybe it’s a thank you for the orgasm, or the cleaning up, or maybe it’s Ada trying to taste herself and rendering her actions pointless as they always are.

Ada releases her, and they lie facing each other on the soft pillows. Her eyes look deep and endless like this, the pupils huge with the dim light and her simmering arousal.

“Then what, Doctor, do you find sexful? What do you want? What do you need?”

The clocks tick, and seconds pass, and she wants to pretend that she’s somehow confused by the old terminology, rather than the questions.

“Or shall I work that out for myself?” Ada asks, stroking a thumb across the Doctor’s lips.

A spark of fear jolts between her hearts. But isn’t that what she came here for? To let Ada Lovelace tinker with her code. Now isn’t _that_ a euphemism.

Ada pulls the Doctor in for another kiss, insinuating her shoulder beneath her, and rolling her on top. The Doctor lets her knees fall either side of the young woman, lifting herself to take more of her weight. Ada’s hold on her thighs, and the slight buck of her hips following the Doctor's movement is sublime.

“You are a gentleman, I think.” Ada says musically, running her thumb up the inner seam of the Doctor’s trousers.

“I’m a woman, a proper one!” The Doctor squeaks, as a loose wire from her old self, stripped of its insulation, violently electrocutes her at Ada’s prodding. ‘A _proper_ one’ indeed. There’s always bigotry to weed out, even if it’s just against yourself.

Ada’s hand follows the seam until it reaches between her legs, stroking her.

“A lady can be a gentleman.” Ada says firmly.

The Doctor rocks against her. Progressive concept of gender. Always a turn on.

Ada’s other hand slides over her shirt.

“You’re so bright now...” Ada whispers, as she trails a hand across the Doctor’s chest, fingers running along the stripes. “For someone so black and white before... Different for different people perhaps?”

“I thought I’d come to see Ada Lov- _King_ , not Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock Holmes?”

“No, sorry that’s later isn’t it.” Stupid eighteen-thirty-whatever. And non-functioning brain.

“Just looking for patterns, my dear.” Ada says with a cheeky smile, quick enough to catch on to something she cannot understand.

The hand between her legs presses more firmly, a thumb rubbing just shy of her clit, and a wiggle of her hips puts it right.

“If I was a betting woman, and unfortunately I must say I am,” Ada pinches her hardened nipple and the Doctor bites her lip as she grinds against her hand. “I would suggest that you’re like me.” The Doctor feels herself flush, heat coursing through her. “You need to be in control, because no-one else is good enough.” Ada’s thumbs start circling their targets. “Now, I cannot travel in time, and you cannot secure funding for an Analytical Engine, but I think in this respect, we can help each other.”

The Doctor’s on top. But she’s already kneeling. She’s not allowed to give up, and let the Bartons and the Daleks and the Masters of the universe win. But Ada, sweet clever Ada... She can give in to her.

“Then, if you may, please remove your clothes.”

She doesn't need telling twice.

The Doctor pushes her suspenders from her shoulders, reaches down, and pulls her jumper and undershirt off together in one go. The static sparks by her eyes, and she feels her hair go everywhere. She shuts her eyes in the hope that somehow that’ll mean Ada can’t see her, as she finger-combs her sweaty hair back into- well, back down at least.

“What _are_ you wearing?” Ada asks loudly, and the Doctor’s eyes snap open, as Ada already begins to run her thumbs under the band of the Doctor’s bra, feeling the fabric.

A residual frisson of panic runs through her, as if she’s been caught messing around in the wardrobe again. Then she remembers she’s perfectly entitled to wear it, and that it’s probably because they haven’t exactly got to polyester and elastane yet.

The Doctor pulls it over her head, and hands it over. She likes Ada because of her fascination, not in spite of it.

Ada stretches the elastic of the sports bra, as the Doctor removes her trousers and pants, and dithers over her socks before removing them too.

“Little wonder you took no issue with all that running, this feels marvellous.” 

But on the other hand...

“I feel like we’ve got off track here.”

Ada laughs at her.

The Doctor clambers back on top of her, feeling ungainly and, well, naked.

The young woman reaches up and cradles her breasts, lightly stroking her nipples with her thumbs, until the Doctor starts to melt into her again. Then she lets her right hand fall - torturously slowly - down the Doctor’s stomach, into the dip of her navel, down into her brush of curls, and with the lightest touch, she strokes along her slit with her fingers, barely touching her as she draws her thumb back up and-

The Doctor gasps. Why did she ever give up a clitoris. Never again. Who needs to pee standing up?

Her legs start to tremble again and she has to support herself with her hands as well, as Ada builds up her circling, ghost-light touches until the Doctor is back to rocking against her, and the tips of Ada’s fingers play at her entrance.

“I assume you’re also not...” Ada ventures vaguely.

Actually it’s been about three thousand six hundred and eighteen years since someone stuck their fingers in her vagina. But it’s not really what Ada’s asking, and she’s done a bit of rehearsal herself.

The Doctor shakes her head, leaving little strands stuck to her sweaty face that she can’t be bothered to brush away.

Ada brings her hand to the Doctor’s hip, gripping tight, and presses her fingers deep inside her.

The Doctor groans, and slumps to press her face against Ada’s neck. The stretch and pull and push, and the overstimulation of too many nerves. She desperately tries to avoid the urge to bite down, as Ada adds another finger and thrusts hard enough to jolt her with each stroke.

Ada breathes hard from the exertion and arousal, wriggling beneath her, trying to find some friction.

The Doctor shoves her arm between them so she can touch the heat between Ada’s legs. Not skilfully, but hopefully just being present counts for something. 

Wet sounds and panting fill the air, and the Doctor bounces on Ada’s hand, knowing she looks completely obscene, but it’s _sex_ , that’s the _point_.

And then Ada’s pulsing against her again, pinning her at the hip as if she might pull away, and like a chain reaction, the Doctor is tightening bodily against her too - squeezing the woman with her arms and legs, and inside herself against a hand that can perform whatever miracles Ada turns it to.

They shudder and gasp against each other, pressed tight, clinging through lingering twitches, and the Doctor has the glorious-terrifying idea that her body might never stop, and she will be here, like this, forever.

But nothing lasts, and after a minute or two the aftershocks subside, and she comes back into the reality of her damp, aching body. The discomfort inside her is too much, and while she only succeeds in shifting her body about a millimetre, Ada hears the whimper that was supposed to be words, and slips her hand out - which makes the Doctor moan louder.

They finally loosen their holds on each other, and the Doctor clumsily rolls off, curling up beside Ada with her head against her shoulder. There’s a dull ache in her pelvis, the same as when her body chooses to optimistically ignore her sterility. The double-edged sword for orgasms that last into triple-digit seconds, perhaps. Needs more practice.

She feels the tug to unconsciousness that she can’t afford to give into, no matter how much she longs for it, as her brain tries to go through a hard reboot. That’s why she needed the world’s first tech support.

Have you tried turning her off and on again. Ha ha.

Ada turns to her, eyes roaming over her face, studying her in the dim candlelight. Memorising her. Her delicate hand reaches up, brushing a thumb along the Doctor’s cheekbone, and where a lock of hair is falling into her eyes, she catches it and tucks it behind her ear.

“Do you know why you are so confused that my name is King?” Ada asks, still breathing deeply.

Exhaustion makes the Doctor's brain fuzzy, and it takes her a few seconds to parse the question.

No? Because she doesn’t listen before? Because she was deliberately trying to invert those power dynamics and failed? No?

Please don’t be the Master.

“‘Might meet a nice Earl’. For all your men’s suits, you betrayed your sex. _I_ am the one of the Barons Lovelace, not he.”

“Oh.” She’s an idiot. That’s fine. Always nice to know why people are called what they are, she supposes.

“So thank you for telling me that the wager that he and I will reclaim that title will pay off.”

“Aha. Wait, _he_?” She’s dazed from pleasure, and her partner apparently gets off on being clever and having hidden secrets - is this what she’s like?

“Well I _am_ married, Doctor.”

“What?!” The Doctor pulls back a little. It’s intensely hypocritical to care about this, but hypocrisy is the only thing that keeps her glued together most days. “Where is he?”

“About fifteen yards down the hall. I stay up working too late for him.” 

“Then why haven’t we been whispering?” The Doctor hisses. The candle flickers.

“Because I didn’t want you to.” Ada says a little sadly. Eyes flitting to her lips, her nose, her brow, as if she’s measuring her. Perhaps that’s what she’s doing. Turning her into a formula to solve in the future.

After she’s ran away.

“Take me with you.” Ada pleads, finally meeting her gaze.

“You need to be here.”

“Your machine travels in time.” It occurs to her that Ada has only spent five minutes in her TARDIS. They would adore each other.

“What if something happens to you out there? You’re important.”

“What if something happens to all those other people you’re with?”

“It’s not the same, they’re not-” The Doctor catches herself. They are important, they are essential. She doesn’t know what impact they have. Or would have had. Before she got involved.

She wavers. No hope without risk. 

“...But I suppose, if the unforeseen occurred... No, I suppose you’re right. I can’t leave them like that, like me, to carry on the cycle again. The children, I mean.”

“You have children?!” The Doctor squeaks, hearing Yaz’s voice in her own like a flashback to a conversation that hasn’t happened yet.

Ada gives her a confused and slightly patronising look, before looking up to the canopy above the bed, and why, in Omega’s name did she not even browse her Wikipedia page before coming here.

“...But perhaps, after my youngest turns sixteen...” Ada says sounding desperate, and turning back to face her again. “What do you think? You still like me at the age of twenty-two. And you would not have to wait even a fraction of time that I will. If you were to return this date, the 18th of December, in the year 1853, perhaps...”

No. That's one thing about Ada Lovelace that she definitely _does_ know.

The Doctor’s hearts break a little at the terrible inevitability of everything. The tide of time coming in to wash away everything she finds beautiful.

“Or do I ask too much of you, again?” 

“No. No. Of course I’ll come back.”

Ada looks down.

“I venture that you will not.”

They lie in silence, until Ada finds her hands again, clasping them between their hearts.

“Are you going to make me forget again, Doctor?”

She squeezes the Doctor’s fingers so tightly. Protecting herself from her.

“You’ll know too much. You’ll know what the future holds. The devices, the technology, the potential-”

“I already believe in the power of my work, Doctor. Or I wouldn't be doing it in the first place.”

The Doctor looks into Ada’s eyes, the black void of her pupils drawing her in again.

If there really is no point to anything she does, if the wheel always turns regardless, if it really is already laid out in inevitable circles like the Gallifreyan she can barely read anymore...

The candle flickers out at last.

  


* * *

  


A fierce pounding on the door causes it to rattle in its hinges.

“I know you’re in there Ada!”

The woman rushes around the room, scooping cards and dice and counters into a small box that she flings high up onto a bookshelf with a clatter.

“Just one moment, I’m...improper!”

“Aye! The whole club knows you’re improper!” A man shouts. 

Ada grabs a handful of notepapers and dithers by the fire, looking at them as if they’re a baby she’s questioning whether or not to throw in, and then settles for shoving them down her bodice.

“Being a lady mathematician is not improper!” She shouts back.

“But being a damn cheat is!” He shouts, and resumes his attempts to pound the lock loose.

Ada eyes up the drop down from the window to the eave over the door. She could make that. Probably. Shame the bricks are so smooth.

“It’s not cheating if you’re just better at playing the game.” She says, mostly to herself.

Even though fudging the numbers might be.

A grinding sound drowns out the noise of Mr Crockford’s fists. Great, and godly, and exactly how the Analytical Engine always sounded in her dreams.

And a huge blue wardrobe fades into existence in the far corner of the drawing room.

Ada’s hands shake, as a familiar face that she never expected to see again peeks out.

They stare at each other.

“What the hell is going on in there! If you’re doing anything to my money!” William bellows.

The Doctor’s the first to break.

“Ada Lovelace, I presume.” She says with a bow. Finally she’s correct.

“It’s 1850, actually.” Ada says, over the thumping.

“Well, I was three years late before, so statistically I’ve arrived exactly in time.”

There’s a harsh, splintering sound. The Doctor extends a hand to her.

“Yes, I do believe you have.” 

  



End file.
